


breathe you deep, breathe you fine

by MurphyAT



Series: In Sickness and In Health [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Asthma, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Second Person, POV Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, so many run-on sentences I am so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 06:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2139951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurphyAT/pseuds/MurphyAT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t love Bucky like he’s the air you need most in your lungs—you know that for sure.  You remember how it felt to need to breathe so damn bad you’re dying with it, and to have that air literally all around you, and to know that you couldn’t have it, just because your stupid body was in the way. That kind of longing—you know that’s not love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	breathe you deep, breathe you fine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luddleston](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luddleston/gifts).



> I am supposed to be writing my epic Stucky Gladiators-in-love AU right now, but then I had feelings about pre-serum Steve, who then had feelings aggressively at Bucky, and I had to write it down. Slight trigger warning for brief description of an asthma attack. Be kind to yo-self!
> 
> For Luddles, because we are kindred spirits bonded by the bondy bonds of anxiety.
> 
> EDIT: This is now a series. There will be one fic for each of the illnesses on Steve's enlistment form (and then some for health?? post-CATWS probably).

You don’t love Bucky the way the film reels tell you to—like a drinking buddy to complain to, like one of the good ol’ boys, like a pal—well. You _are_ pals, and you do love him like a brother, but, see that’s where the difficulty comes in, because you don’t _just_ love him like a brother—it’s always meant more than that, right from the very start. You don’t have much of a frame of reference to put how you feel about Bucky in proper perspective—James Buchanan Barnes, you have always found, is notoriously hard to pin down. It just figures that any feelings that run up against a man like Bucky would turn a little haywire, too. 

So you don’t love Bucky the way the films say guys should love each other, but you ain’t no dame, and those films—the ones your ma always took you to, ones Bucky would spend weeks making fun of, trumpeting laughter between falsetto declarations of “Mister Rogers! I never!”, his shoulders brushing yours as he pretended to swoon—they aren’t much help either. Even if you _were_ a dame, you don’t think they would be much use, because you have much better things to do than to sit sighing away, pining after some jerk like they’re the air you breathe and the light the sun needs to shine. 

See, ‘cause you don’t love Bucky like he’s the air you need most in your lungs—you know that for sure. This is the best way you can describe it: one afternoon in the winter you turned 14 and the year Bucky shot up so fast he couldn’t sleep unless you massaged the muscles of his strained calves, you and Bucky were walking home from school, in lockstep, Bucky’s arm thrown casually across your shoulders—and it was cold. It was, in fact, the coldest, driest winter anyone on the island had seen for decades, and you could feel your breath rattling up against your throat like a car battery failing to start. 

Bucky said something (he was always saying _something_ ), and it made you laugh, and you couldn’t help how he got to you, and maybe you laughed too hard because suddenly the cold, dry air just wasn’t working the way air was meant to work for people. It felt like some piece of you had broken off and was pinballing up and down your throat and lungs, getting bigger every time until it just—stuck. Right at the part where air was supposed to reach the deeper parts of you. 

And you were sucking in air, and sucking in air, but you weren’t as such _breathing_ , and you looked up and huh, guess you’d sat down, because Bucky was crouching in front of you with one hand clamped on the back of your neck and the other hovering over your heaving chest. And he was staring at you with this wild, frightful kind of look, like he was the one losing air in this situation, or like he might already be punching some assholes if that didn’t involve taking his eyes off you. 

And you knew you had to get home, get warm with the pot on the stove giving off steam because these kinds of attacks didn’t usually stop on their own. And you knew that Bucky knew that, so you punched his shoulder a little bit and tried not to pass out while you gasped, “ _Buck_ …need—to …home—” and that snapped him out of his extremely inconvenient moment of panic enough to swing you up to ride piggyback, something he could only do because your body was spitefully tiny. 

Normally you would protest, because you ain’t no kid, but Bucky was muttering desperately, “God, I’m such a moron, don’t you worry, Stevie, I’ll get you home and your ma will be there and we’ll get you breathing real nice, you’ll win a goddamn medal you’ll be breathing so perfect, I’ll get you there, Steve, just hold on, just keep breathing for me, pal—” and so you locked your arms around his neck and gasped in Bucky’s ear. 

He got you home just like he promised, and he and your ma got you breathing nice enough after a while, though you didn’t win any awards for it—not that you would accept an award for something as dumb as breathing, good lord, how embarrassing. But the point is that you remember how it felt to need to breathe so damn bad you’re dying with it, and to have that air literally all around you, and to know that you couldn’t have it, just because your stupid body was in the way. That kind of longing, the kind that gave you tunnel vision—you know that’s not love. That’s grief, or something else sad that happens every day. 

The way you love Bucky—that’s a special, Sunday Best kind of feeling. That’s how you felt when he sat with you on the couch (the pot at your feet steaming breathable air at last), rubbing your chest with menthol and muttering dirty jokes slyly under his breath, to see how much he could get away with without your ma noticing, and you looked at him, and you could breathe again. And you could think again, and laugh again. Bucky, he —he made you feel like you could win a medal for just breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr as magpiemurph and talk to me about scientifically enhanced supersoldier boyfriends! 
> 
> Link to awesome meta about Steve's illnesses: http://potofsoup.tumblr.com/post/89461426642/chronically-ill-steve-rogers


End file.
